Just a load

We now have Glenn Greenwald's reaction to the current state of heath care/insurance reform, and once again the problem is the same. Glenn argues that President Obama is a sell-out who never cared about a progressive reform bill anyway, never fought for one, and is getting exactly what he wanted. And while I agree with much of Glenn's critique of the compromise bill itself, everything else Glenn says strikes me as wrongheaded.

Indeed, we've seen before what the White House can do -- and does do -- when they actually care about pressuring members of Congress to support something they genuinely want passed. When FDL and other liberal blogs led an effort to defeat Obama's war funding bill back in June, the White House became desperate for votes, and here is what they apparently did (though they deny it):

The White House is playing hardball with Democrats who intend to vote against the supplemental war spending bill, threatening freshmen who oppose it that they won't get help with reelection and will be cut off from the White House, Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.) said Friday. "We're not going to help you. You'll never hear from us again," Woolsey said the White House is telling freshmen.

That's what the White House can do when they actually care about pressuring someone to vote the way they want. Why didn't they do any of that to the "centrists" who were supposedly obstructing what they wanted on health care? Why didn't they tell Blanche Lincoln -- in a desperate fight for her political life -- that she would "never hear from them again," and would lose DNC and other Democratic institutional support, if she filibustered the public option? Why haven't they threatened to remove Joe Lieberman's cherished Homeland Security Chairmanship if he's been sabotaging the President's agenda? Why hasn't the President been rhetorically pressuring Senators to support the public option and Medicare buy-in, or taking any of the other steps outlined here by Adam Green? There's no guarantee that it would have worked -- Obama is not omnipotent and he can't always control Congressional outcomes -- but the lack of any such efforts is extremely telling about what the White House really wanted here.

And this:

In essence, this reinforces all of the worst dynamics of Washington. The insurance industry gets the biggest bonanza imaginable in the form of tens of millions of coerced new customers without any competition or other price controls. Progressive opinion-makers, as always, signaled that they can and should be ignored (don't worry about us -- we're announcing in advance that we'll support whatever you feed us no matter how little it contains of what we want and will never exercise raw political power to get what we want; make sure those other people are happy but ignore us). Most of this was negotiated and effectuated in complete secrecy, in the sleazy sewers populated by lobbyists, industry insiders, and their wholly-owned pawns in the Congress. And highly unpopular, industry-serving legislation is passed off as "centrist," the noblest Beltway value.

Glenn still doesn't understand the issue of motivation, of the art of the practical versus the perfect, of focusing on doing what needs to be done to get to possible from impossible.

Here's what I said a couple of days ago:

Here's the thing. As I allude to above, President Obama is not doctrinal, he's practical. It is the quality that now, and almost always has, defined the man. He's no radical, and no ideologue. If his policies don't seem to match his words, it's nevertheless key to keep his words in mind, because they remain core, guiding principals. Where Bush was doctrinal - all policy came directly from his specific beliefs, in American exceptionalism independent of actual deeds - Obama sometimes appears to fail to achieve, or even try to achieve, the goals that we expect from his principles.

Some say that's because Obama's a realist, others because he doesn't really believe in what he says. But what Barack Obama believes has been clear for a long time - a conservative (meaning cautious) liberalism, open-minded advancement based on a realistic approach toward improvement. He's not an idealist, and never will be. He uses his political capital carefully, not arrogantly, and not in a way that squanders it in battles he calculates will end up in a loss. That does not mean he betrays principles, just that he wants to achieve those principals in practical and realistic manner.

Greenwald would say that it's nonsense, or blind faith. Glenn is an idealist, and that's great. We need those. President Obama needs those. Idealists keep us honest, when they're honest with themselves. And the President would be best served if he were surrounded by a few more of those.

But idealists gave us Ralph Nader and, as a result, eight years of George W. Bush.

Idealists gave us the neocons and a war to "liberate" Iraq.

Idealism has its limits.

Here, idealism will give us no health care reform, and a Sarah Palin administration.

You may not agree with the President's choices on this, but they were reasonable choices by a man who cares less about ideology and partisanship than about getting something done. The fact that we end up where many signs hint at where the President expected us to end up doesn't mean that he has failed us. Greenwald and the neo-Naderites see betrayal. This is anything but that. It is, most likely, the best health care reform bill that was ever possible out of this Senate and House. You may not like that, and you may think that the President is a failure or a cheat by not somehow, some way, changing the facts on the ground; you may want to believe that Barack Obama is seedy and corrupt by greasing the pole to make reform palatable to some vested interests. But saying those things does not make it so. Handled in the way the so-called progressive camp is now demanding could just as likely (more so, I would argue) mean that today we're looking back at the complete failure of Obama's health care initiative and a gloating, rather than refexively angry, GOP. It's cliche but also a truism that politics is the art of the possible. Regardless, we are where we are, now. Either the bill is worth passing, or it is not. But whatever the case, it's not due to bad faith by a President who has advanced the cause of health care reform beyond anyone's imagination a year ago.

Let me put it differently. The President is, by natural disposition or legislative and Senate experience or by the guidance of a staff and Cabinet filled with former Senators and Congresspeople, focused on process and realism. His approach acknowledges the flawed nature of the system and the dynamics of corporate interests and money and, most likely, back-room dealing. It sucks, it really does. And so Glenn is right, as far as it goes, to say that this whole process "reinforces all of the worst dynamics of Washington." But those dynamics are real, and the disputes about policy are real as well. Jimmy Carter failed as President for, among other reasons, a stubborn refusal to acknowledge and work within those dynamics. What was the result of Carter's national energy policy, for example? Do we want to remember Obama's health care initiative in the same way, as something that would have been a great leap forward, if only?

So here's the reality: if the left - who have now become the problem moreso than the deranged right (because the right just don't matter any longer in this effort from a procedural standpoint, unless we make them matter) - do not undermine this bill, we will have the most significant and important reform of the American health care system since the advent of Medicare. If the left sinks it now, it's not coming back, no matter what Howard Dean and Michael Moore and Daily Kos have to say about it.

It's really pretty simple. It's time to just get it done.